Nest
by Jerseycaramel
Summary: 'Every night, when he woke in cold sweats, he would be wide awake within seconds; the remnants of whatever nightmare his brain had played still lingering in his thoughts, and would start his journey to the top of the tower. She would always follow him.' How Clint deals with New York and how Natasha helps him though it. BlackHawk. One-shot.


A/N: Hey there Blackhawk/Clintasha fans! I love this fandom, just never got around to posting anything. I wrote this just after the movie came out, and it just sat on my computer. I have writer's block for one of my other stories and came across the motherlode of everything I wrote and just hadn't posted :) But I digress.

This is just a little something of how i thought they should get together if they weren't and the healing process of Clint.

Hope you enjoy :)

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Clint had a routine, something he had done since Loki and the Battle of Manhattan. He and the rest of the Avengers had moved into Tony's tower at the insistence of Fury after their few days of leave. Fury wanted to know where his 'Dream Team' were at all times, regardless of what he told his superiors. Natasha hadn't wanted to move anywhere within a 50 mile radius of Tony Stark, but his partner was good at following orders. _Clint_ was the one who defied those things, finding them more like guidelines than rule, and he had absolutely no regrets bringing her in to S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place.

Every night, Clint would head to the top of the ruined Stark Tower and sit on the ledge watching the city that never sleeps from his high vantage point. The height calmed him, soothing him from the nightmares from his mind rape. Normally, he woke up in the middle of killing Natasha, torturing her, sometimes taking her forcefully, and he would never be able to get back to sleep. He hated Loki for putting all of that in his brain; despised him for it, in fact. Having those thoughts about your partner in your head made life difficult; harder even, when your partner was possibly something more than just a partner...

Every night, when he woke in cold sweats, he would be wide awake within seconds; the remnants of whatever nightmare his brain had played still lingering in his thoughts, and would start his journey to the top of the tower.

She would always follow him.

The first night, he had yelled at Natasha; saying things he regretted the moment they left his lips. She took it all, and wouldn't budge. Honestly, Clint should have known better. The Russian was as stubborn as he was; the archer thought it had something to do with her red hair. Natasha gave him all the space he wanted in the daylight, but in the night, she was resolute in not letting him push her away. She sat down next to him, wrapping her blanket around the both of them, fighting him as he tried to get away from her. How they didn't fall off the roof together, he didn't know; and he kicked himself about it later.

'No.' she said, finding victory in wrapping them together. 'I'm not leaving.' She was his partner; there was no way she was going to let him deal with all of these things by himself. Natasha knew when to push and when to yield and this was a battle she was going to win for them.

Clint relented, thinking it would only be the one night. He was wrong. Again, he should have known better. The next night, he just smiled ruefully, and allowed her to tuck the blanket around his shoulders and snuggle up next to him.

She had been climbing up behind him every night for months now. After that first night, they never spoke to each other. They sat in silence, wrapped in warmth and body heat as they watched New Yorkers stay out to all hours of the early morning. Not even when Clint saw the tapes of Natasha interrogating Loki in the Hulk container. She knew he had seen them, but said nothing. Hearing her say he was only a debt cut him, deeply. Somewhere, he knew, it wasn't true, but there was still a part of him that considered the possibility that a debt is all their partnership – and all the crap they had waded through together – meant to her. But then she would follow him up to that freezing roof and share body warmth with him, and that sparked hope in his heart.

The next day he watched another video. This one was much more painful than Natasha's. He watched Loki stabbing Coulson through the chest, trying to keep the tears at bay and the hurt from boiling to the surface. She knew about that one too; seemed to be able to know that he needed her more that night, reassurance perhaps. That night he woke from a nightmare where _he_ was holding the sceptre and not Loki, and _he_ was the one stabbing it through his friend's chest. He cried this time. He and Coulson had become family, the one person he could talk to aside from Natasha, and the only one who he could talk to _about_ Natasha. When Clint opened his door, Natasha was waiting for him, taking in his red eyes and shallow breathing, she said nothing, simply taking his hand and lacing her fingers through his before leading him up to the roof. Natasha didn't let go of him all night.

They had never been like this before. Not every night at least. They would comfort each other for the night after a particularly bad mission – normally involving children – and after that, they would never talk about the comfort they found in each other's arms. They hardly ever touched when they weren't in the field, but Clint had always gravitated towards his partner, finding that his skin buzzed when they were close. So, this - with all the touching - was torture; almost as bad as the nightmares he had. Having her warm breath on his skin every night, had him suffering like never before. It seemed that he had been caught in the Black Widow's web without her knowledge. Clint liked that he was the only one that who knew her, and had actually fallen for Natasha, rather than the countless other aliases she had donned over the years, like the other poor bastards she usually trapped.

It still hurt, though, knowing that all of these feeling were one sided. Natasha Romanoff would never love him. 'Love is for children,' she would always tell him, and neither one of them had innocence anymore, not with all the red in their ledgers. And as she followed him up to the roof every night, he couldn't help but fall just that little more in love with her.

Three months of silent nights spent with his partner, Fury decided to give him a mission, without Natasha. In a way, Clint was glad she wasn't going with him, but then again, he almost distraught that he was going to be truly alone for the first time in ages. And it terrified him.

That last night before his mission, was the first time she spoke to him in all of their nights together on the roof. The tower was no longer a wreck, almost back to its pristine condition, as they sat and watched the tiny headlights go by and lights turn off and on in neighbouring buildings.

'Be careful.' her voice small and unsteady compared to her usual confidence. 'I want you back in one piece.'

Clint didn't know what to say. Since he had his mind scrambled, he honestly didn't know what he would be like on a mission, another reason why he was glad to be going alone. He didn't know what to expect from himself nor did he want to put Natasha's life in anymore danger than necessary.

Natasha asking him to come back alive made his decision resolute. He wouldn't take any pointless, suicidal risks, more than normal at least. Her voice made it certain that Clint didn't have a death wish.

Without even realizing it, he was healing. Slower than he would have liked to admit, and he probably would never be the same again, but it would be close enough to normal, and he could live with that. He had been healing as the tower had been restored, and much like the tower, there would be differences in him, some upgrades here, a little paint there, but both would be as solid and stable as before.

'I promise.' he murmured, pressing a kiss into her hair.

He thought about her non-stop while he was on the mission. The way she smelled, laughed, looked, breathed. Clint kept thinking back to those nights on the rooftop, huddled into each others warmth and he missed that; even taking a blanket to the roof of the shabby hotel he was staying at but not finding an inch of relief because Nat wasn't there to warm him.

The only time he wasn't thinking about her was when he released the bowstring, an arrow finding his target's forehead. He wouldn't taint her by thinking about her when he was killing. They were both already swimming in red, and he didn't need to add another bucket.

Clint found himself edgy, waiting for the plane to arrive. He ached to see her. Those red curls and lips, taunting his thoughts for leaving without her.

He dreamt of her the entire way back on the bumpy small aircraft, and when he wasn't sleeping, he was day dreaming of her. He had missed her so much; he hadn't once had a nightmare of all the terrible things Loki was going to make him do to her. They had all been proper dreams of wanting her there with him. Mostly, he dreamt of nights on that roof just being with her.

As he stepped into the elevator of Stark Tower – now named the _Avengers Tower_, it seemed - Clint hesitated, hovering over the button to their floor. He decided against it, pressing the button for the roof.

He wanted to look at that view, the thing that helped him come back, before seeing the most important thing in his life asleep in her bed. The view had been a backdrop, Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, known for her coldness and lack of heart, had warmed his and gotten it beating again. No, that view wasn't what had kept him from the brink.

It was her. Always had been.

Leaving his bags next to the elevator doors, he opened the door to the roof, finding his favourite ladder, climbing it quickly to get to his - their - perch. Clint was going to inhale the smoggy air a few times before practically sprinting back to her room, taking his life into his hands as he woke her.  
But he never got that far.

As Clint stepped off the ladder, he almost fell back. The deserted rooftop in which he and Nat had cuddled on was no more.

He was livid.

This had been his Nirvana, and Stark had gone and put a fucking room on it. What the fuck was so important that he couldn't fit it in the other hundred floors the tower offered. No. Tony fucking Stark had to take the roof as well.

The rage and fury cursed through him as he contemplated burning it down, when he saw the light flick on inside.

_Who would be up at this hour? It's 3am!_

His thoughts turned to Stark, hoping it was him in there so Clint could give him a piece of his mind, but as the door opened, it was the last person he expected to be standing in the doorway.

She was supposed to be waiting for him in bed.

'You going to stand there all night?' Nat smiled at him, that same blanket wrapped around her small body.

He followed her, and found an apartment instead of the one room be was expecting.

'Nat-'

'Welcome home.' she said in that same small voice she used before he left.

Clint tried to fight it, but he was a weak man when it came to her. He walked the few steps that separated them, and took her in his arms. Blanket covered arms wrapped around his neck, cocooning them; and he could feel the warmth again.

Clint buried his nose into her neck, just breathing her in. It had felt like more than a week since he'd seen her, but God it was amazing to see her now.

She pulled away from him, just far enough away to look at his face, bodies still tangled in each other.

'Do you like it?'

He looked around for the first time, taking in the TV and sofa, a small table and chairs next to the wall, three doors were at the far end all closed, but the one that was open offered a bed. It was cosy and warm with lamps and wood, nothing like what Stark preferred in his tower. He liked Spartan and steel, not clutter and colour and wood. That's what Clint liked, and he saw it in every detail of the room.

'What is this place?'

'Yours,' she said simply.

He blinked at her.

'Come on,' she said, pulling him towards the bedroom. She opened the floor length curtains to reveal the view he had wanted to drink in, but now he was having a hard time focusing on it with Natasha in the room with him. There was a small patio behind the glass; their spot. The railing was still there where they had sat for all of those nights in silence. But now there was a deck chair out there too.

'How?'

'Tony owed me.'

He gulped. 'Why?'

'I know you. You like heights, and watching, and the plain roof didn't really offer a good enough nest,' she chuckled a little. 'And this bed is much softer and warmer than the cold hard concrete we've been sitting on.'

'Nat-'

'The view helped you, Clint. I saw how broken you were after everything-'

He lunged forward, cupping her face and kissing her lips with such emotion, he ached. But what made that moment the best of his life, something that he would never forget: she kissed him back.

'You helped me,' he panted, resting his forehead against hers. 'Just being with you on this roof pulled me back in.'

He leaned in and kissed her again, quickly but with the same amount of passion. 'I can't believe you did all of this in a week.'

'Well when you're close to Stark's personal assistant/girlfriend, you get a lot done. It also helps when you know a band of super heroes who were more than willing to help.'

'You are amazing.'

'I should go,' her voice was pained as she kissed him one last time before trying to free herself from his grasp.

'Stay, please,' his lips began to trail down her neck and he heard her moan, telling him she lost the battle. 'I spent a week without you, after three months of spending every night with you. I missed you, Nat. Please, stay with me.' Clint Barton didn't beg, he had never begged anyone to stay before, but he needed this woman to stay with him, possibly forever.

'Ok,' she breathed. She led him to the bed, releasing his hand to walk to the other side. They both slipped under the covers, finding warmth and solace at the touch of skin as they met in the middle. A smile couldn't be kept from either of their faces as they stared at each, heads only inches apart on separate pillows. Clint reached out and tucked piece of hair behind her ear, watching her eyes close at his touch. He doesn't know how long they stared into each other's eyes, but eventually they drifted into sleep.

For the first time since the Battle of Manhattan - and even before that if they're honest - both Hawkeye and the Black Widow had a soundless sleep, not waking until noon the next day, finding limbs wrapped around each other with matching smiles.

Natasha had saved him, yet again, but he wasn't worried about her thinking he was only a debt. She had done all of this for him and that alone told him, he meant much more. There was no way in all the worlds she would leave him now, not with that smile on her lips, or the way she kissed him good morning. And if she did, he'd follow her anywhere. His nest, as Nat put it, was anywhere she was.

And the funny thing about birds and spiders is that they both nest.

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A/N: Reviews give me a happy. :)


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